Festival Day 1

Right. I had some shitty news. So I have gone off grid for a few days. I’m at a festival. I don’t even know the name of the festival. It begins with an S. It’s in Somerset. Shindig? That sounds right… *google*

Yep. It might look like this. A friend of mine had a spare ticket.

I wanted there to be lots of cows. That guy on the wire has to stay there for three whole days. The line-up is hilarious. I honestly don’t give a monkey’s about anyone who is playing except for maybe Correspondents. I don’t know who most of them are. And those I do know – Phill Jupitus…? In massive letters? I’ll probably choke to death on hayfever or freeze in my sleeping bag. But I need a change of scene so I am getting one. This blog is being written in advance. The facts contained herein may be different from the reality as it manifests. But if I don’t do this I will arrive there, realise there’s no reception, spend most of the first night looking for a way not to break the blog-chain which has reached the figure 497 with this post, and end up not relaxing and chilling out which is the reason I came here.

So here is what might have happened to me on the first day. And this gives me a blog-break in real time as I’m banking 2 days the evening before I leave…

I first noticed him following me when I got off the train at Somerset Piccadilly Station. He was trying to blend in with his surroundings, shifting with the light, moving from cover to cover. Phill Jupitus. But what did he want with me? I kept my head down. Behaved as if everything was normal. Walked past the orgy of bald men in their fifties shouting “TAXI”. Joined a queue at the bus stop. In front of me was a tall skinny boy talking animatedly with his friend about crabsticks. Jupitus was in a field, flanking me, dressed as a cow. He thought I wasn’t wise to him, but he hadn’t been working on his moo. And he kept mooing over the other cows when they tried to moo. Textbook Jupitus. Even the pigeons knew he was a fake cow.

The bus arrived and I kept an eye on him, galumphing along behind it with his big legs at supernatural speed, cow suit flailing with his rolling gate, hiding huffing like a train fuelled with lager and rage, never more than ten foot behind the bus. I could see the madness in his eyes. A damp picture of my face clutched in his hand. I racked my brain. What could I have done? I only saw him once at that panel show in Edinburgh. The bus stopped at Nother Chostberry. Twelve old ladies disembarked, before one of them got back on. “Mine’s the next one,” she laughed. It wasn’t funny but we all chuckled obediently, automatically. My mind was on Jupitus. He was pretending to be a cow again while we stopped. The boy, whose name was Toby, was still on the bus, talking about mandarins.

Seventeen stops later we arrived at Blimpington which is where the Shnurrrdog Festival is definitely taking place. Keeping Toby between myself and Jupitus I hauled my bag from the bus. He was talking about chipotle oblivious that he was my human shield.

I had packed in a rush. I had a bionic arm, seven tubs of sprouts and a fish finger sandwich from Woolworth’s that I had kept from childhood. It’s the only time I ever saw them selling food. It’s worth a lot of money. I tried not to look at Jupitus but I could sense he was there, still on me, inevitable, powerful, terrible. Could it be the sandwich? I had other things to think about though. The War-Child volunteer was trying to make jokes as he fished in my bag and fingered my sprouts. “You know you can’t take any vitamins onto the site,” he said. “I have none”, I assured him, feeling the guilty pain of the sanatogen gaffered to my inner thigh. Shit. I had been distracted. Where was Jupitus? I’d lost him.

I walked into the festival site. I could hear the Mumpflunkers playing on main stage. Behind me, a shadow flickered and was still. On the wind came the unmistakable “tsccch” of a ringpull. Was that him? Was he in? Had I lost him? How had he got past the War Child volunteer? What does he want with me? Is it safe to relax?